The Troubles of Childhood
by Myth Queen
Summary: SG-1 encounters an odd device while traveling on another planet that turns them all into five-year-olds. Set Season 10. Crackfic
1. Chapter 1

"It's fascinating," Daniel said, drooling over the large, stone structure before them. It was about ten feet tall, four feet wide and had all kinds of ancient inscriptions on it.

"I know!" exclaimed Sam. "These energy readings are amazing. It'."

Cam looked at her. "Did you just say 'Extra special thingy'?" he questioned. Sam glared at him.

"No. I said ''..."

"Okay, okay, we get the point," Cam interrupted. He could never make heads or tails out of what Sam said. But that was okay. As long as she knew what she was talking about, everything was fine. After all, she was smart and Cam wasn't too proud to admit that he was dumber than she was.

"This dialect is really old!" Daniel said, scribbling in his notebook.

"Yeah, yeah," Vala was looking around, extremely bored. "Where's the gold?"

"There is no gold." Tealc said, his deep voice hiding a hint of amusement. "I merely informed you there was so that you would not irritate General Landry about giving us a different mission."

"What?" Vala exclaimed. "Oh, well, I guess it's for the best."

"Indeed," Tealc agreed. Cam leaned against the structure.

"Whoa!" Sam suddenly exclaimed. "These measurements are going wild!"

Daniel stepped back from the structure. "I didn't do anything!"

"Oh, boy..." Cam backed away as well. "I think I did."

"Shouldn't we run?" asked Vala.

"Uh..."

Before anybody could say another word, there was a blinding flash of light and a weird, high-pitched grating sound. Each member of SG-1 felt an explosion burst from the structure, and all were knocked unconscious.


	2. Chapter 2

"Oh, man!" Cam exclaimed when he woke up. "That hurt!"

"Who's that?" an unfamiliar voice asked. Cam stood up, shaking his head. A few feet away, he saw a cute little girl, with blonde hair and big blue eyes, staring at him in shock. Little? Cam did another take. She was as tall as he was! Come to think of it, the device was a lot bigger then he remembered...

"I've been shrunk!" Cam turned around and saw a black-haired girl, who looked on the verge of panic.

"It's okay, little girl," Cam said in his most soothing voice. "Hey, Daniel, what just happened?"

"I don't know." Around the structure came a five-year-old boy with Daniel's glasses on.

"Tealc?" the blonde girl called.

"I am here." Tealc came around the device. At least, a Tealc that looked five years old did...

Cam looked at all of them. "Uh oh..."

Sam looked disheartened. "If my calculations are correct, I'm just as young as all of you."

"What happened?" Vala asked.

"We're five," Daniel said.

"I can see that!" Vala snapped. "Why are we five?"

"How am I supposed to know? We should get back to the Stargate and tell the general what's happened."

"Agreed," little Tealc said, and the little band of troopers headed off.


	3. Chapter 3

"I can't reach the DHD!" little Daniel exclaimed, hopping up and down. Cam and Tealc, who had been taking turns carrying a P-90, sat down in exhaustion.

"These things are heavy!" Cam complained.

"I did suggest we only take Zats." Tealc glared at him briefly.

"Okay, nobody panic!" Sam said. "I'm sure that as soon as we tell the General what happened, we'll be able to fix it."

"Right," Vala said. "Because we're SG-1!"

"Yeah," Daniel gave them all a look. "But I can't dial. I'm too small!"

Tealc walked over to the DHD. "Perhaps you can stand on my back and dial."

Daniel looked a little nervous. "Are you sure?"

"Indeed I am, Daniel Jackson." Tealc got down on his hands and knees. Daniel climbed onto his back and began punching earth's coordinates.

"We've got a little problem, Sir," Sam said into the radio when a wormhole was established. She stepped in front of the MALP. "As you can see, we're all five!"

"Oh, boy!" Landry said, sounding very surprised. "What happened?"

"We're not sure, sir." Daniel said. "The thingy said something about organic youth or something like that."

"We think that maybe it's a thingy that still around." Sam said.

"Coronel?" Landry questioned. He had never heard her use the word 'thingy' before.

"And apparently, our minds are returning to five year old mode." Cam observed.

"Oh, goody," Vala groaned. "I want a cookie."

Landry puzzled for a moment. "I'll send a HAZMAT team. Landry out."

"Goody!" Daniel shouted. "General Laundry... I mean Landry..." he burst into giggles. Within seconds, the entire team was in bursts of laughter.

"General Laundry! General Laundry!" they sang.

"This is very not good!" Tealc laughed. "We must remain professional."

"Oh, professional!" Cam giggled. He pulled a serious face. "I'm General Laundry, and I'm professional!"

"What's taking them so long?" Sam complained suddenly.

"I'm hungry!" Vala whined.

Just then, the gate dialled. It kawooshed with a loud rush and a beautiful sight of boiling blue event-horizon.

"Yeah!" Daniel shouted.

SG-1 ran towards the gate. "General Laundry!" they shouted, excited. As the first people came through, they stopped.

"You're _not_ General Laundry!" Cam shouted.


	4. Chapter 4

"What is it Walter?" General Landry asked.

"I can't get a lock, Sir," Walter replied, worried.

"Why not?"

"Well, it could be..."

"It's already dialled." General Landry looked at the Stargate, a grim expression on his face. "Good luck, SG-1!" he whispered.

MEANWHILE, ON A HATACK...

Vala stuck out her tongue. "You're an ugly poo-poo head!" she screamed.

Her interrogator looked unfazed by the insult. "What were you doing on that planet?" he asked.

"None of you bees wax!" Cam replied, also sticking out his tongue.

Daniel stuck out his tongue as well. "General Landry will rescue us! We're SG-1!" he declared smugly.

Tealc glared. "We will not speak with a false god!" He then stuck out his tongue.

"Do you think that a bunch of children can escape a goa'uld mother ship?"

It was Sam who answered, supremely calm and poised. "General O'Neill will save me," she said, pristine and clear. And she stuck out her tongue.

The interrogator put his head in his hands. He muttered something about stupid kids, and then looked up. "Look," he said, "I know that you don't like me..."

"Yeah," Vala snorted. "Stupid Ba'al won't even interrogate us himself. You know why? He's SCARED of us!" At that, all of SG-1 laughed.

As if by magic, the door opened and Ba'al came strutting in. Sam got to her feet, held her nose high in the air, gave him a haughty look, and said, "General O'Neill will not let you get away with this. If you have any sense of self-preservation, you'd give us up before he came, gun ablaze, bullets flying, deep brown eyes fiery with determination..." Sam's own eyes had gone dreamy. "You cannot stop him! He will tear the galaxy apart for me!"

"What about us?" Daniel asked, his bottom lip trembling. He didn't like loud noises, and he didn't like guns. "Won't he rescue us, too?"

"Of course he will," Sam assured him, "But he has to rescue me first. Like in the movies."

"Oh." Daniel smiled. "Right, because he's totally in love with you."

Tealc snickered. "General O'Niell and Coronel Carter, sitting in a tree-" he started, but couldn't remember the rest so shrugged.

Vala was glaring at Ba'al. She turned to Cam and in a loud whisper. "He tried to kiss me!"

Cam looked thoroughly disgusted. Daniel, on the other hand, jumped from the chair he was sitting in, ran over to Ba'al, and gave him a sound kick. He (Daniel) cried out in pain and clutched his foot as the others grew furious at Ba'al for hurting their friend.

Ba'al looked at them, trying not to laugh. "SG-1!" he exclaimed. "You're all a bunch of little kids!"

"Observant," Tealc glowered. "You're nothing but a big fat ugly booger brain!"

"This is priceless," Ba'al chuckled. "Here I have you, five children with the secrets of the Tauri and knowledge of the Ancients."

"Oh, boy," Cam groaned. "This is not going to be good."

Ba'al chuckled darkly. "Soon I will know all I want."


	5. Chapter 5

"What?" Jack jumped up from his desk. "What do you mean, SG-1's missing?"

Sergeant Parker looked grave. "We had just gotten word that they were somehow turned into five year olds. Before the HAZMAT team could go through, they were gone."

Jack paced. Sam, Daniel, Tealc, Cam, and Vala... SG-1. His favourite team. His friends. Well, not so much Cam and Vala, but that's because they had only been around for a little while and hadn't gone through all the life-and-death stuff with him. "Is there any indication of where they've gone?"

"No," Sergeant Parker said. Jack shook his head in disappointment.

"I'm coming to the SGC," he said, and started out the door.

BACK TO THE HATACK

"Ba'al is stupid!" Vala sang. "Ba'al is ugly!"

Ba'al rolled his eyes. How did one interrogate a five year old? So far she had laughed at everything he said, called him a poo-poo head five times, a mean old fatty ten times, and a ugly dipstick twice. And she bit him!

"Take her away!" he told his brain-washed Jaffa. "Bring Carter."

A few minutes later Sam was escorted through the door. She looked at Ba'al haughtily. "Whatever you torture me with, it will only make your final doom at the hands of General O'Neill even worse."

Ba'al rolled his eyes. "Never mind." he sent her away.

LATER, IN A CELL

"Ready," Daniel whispered. He shut his eyes tightly and waited for the blow.

"No, no!" Cam exclaimed. "We have to fight!"

Tealc rolled his eyes. He glanced at Sam and Vala, and nodded. Then he stepped in and hit Cam. Cam rolled around and hit him back. Sam and Vala started screaming. Daniel, realising he was supposed to take Tealc's job, ran to the door.

"They're killing each other!" he screamed, and theatrically started sobbing.

A Jaffa came running, and looked in. It must have indeed looked bad, because he opened the door and started in. SG-1 wasted no time. In an instant, all five children were on him. Tealc got his zat and the rest jumped out of the way as he fired. The Jaffa went unconscious.

"Good work, people," Cam said as Daniel locked the Jaffa in the cell.

"Now, to Oz!" Sam shouted and went running off. Cam was about to protest, but the others had already followed her.

"I'm the leader!" he pouted, following them.

They snuck around the ship until they heard the clanking noise of a Jaffa. They quickly ducked into a side compartment. All of them but Vala, that is. She jumped out into the hall, sat down on the floor, took a moment to compose herself, and then started screaming. The Jaffa picked up his pace and hurried to see what the commotion was all about. As he turned the corner, Vala jumped up and started running away.

Tealc fired the zat. The Jaffa went rigid and fell to the floor. With a lot of heaving and puffing, they managed to drag him back to the cells, and locked him up.

AT THE SGC

Jack carefully hid a zat and a P-90 under his coat as he walked towards the gate room. He had argued with everyone there was to argue with about rescuing SG-1. They all tried to tell him that they didn't know where his team was. But Jack knew. He could feel it in his bones. And then when they had received the message...

"I have captured SG-1. If you want them to be returned to you alive, heed what I have to say."

Jack's blood boiled as he thought of Ba'al's smug goa'uld face. He wouldn't get away with it. Not this time.

"General!" Walter said when he saw him. "It's been a long time since I've seen you."

"Hey, Walter. Good to see you." Jack forced himself to grin. He hated this. When Walter turned around, he zatted him.

Within minutes, Jack had dialled the gate and was gone.


	6. Chapter 6

Ba'al sat on his chair, glaring at two of his clones. "What do you mean; you can't get them to talk?"

"Sorry," one muttered. "All they do is insult me."

"Or throw tantrums," the other one chimed in.

Ba'al rolled his eyes. "Haven't you ever heard of _torture_?" he groaned. Maybe the clones weren't that great of an idea after all.

The two clones looked at each other. "Have you seen them? They're five years old!"

Ba'al gave him a blank look. "So...?"

"So..." the clone paused. "I see your point."

"Indeed!" said a little Tealc voice, "It is time for you to see ours!"

Three zat blasts issued from the corners of the rooms. Before they even realised that they had been outwitted by five children, the Ba'al's were unconscious.

A FEW HOURS LATER

Ba'al was sitting in a cell along with every clone and Jaffa there was onboard the ship. He glared through the bars at SG-1, who were just as irritating as five little children as they were as adults. More irritating, in fact. In his experience, it had only been O'Neill that had been _this_ annoying.

"We're smarter then you!" Cam taunted.

"Yeah, and Sam's even smarter!" Vala laughed at him.

"You will pay for your insolence!" Daniel said, pitching his voice deeper. He sounded like a mouse trying to act like a lion.

Tealc simply stood by, smiling.

"GENERAL O'NIELL!" Sam suddenly shouted. The others all looked in the direction she was looking. There, in the hall, P-90 in hand, decked out in full battle uniform, the lights of the hat'ack beaming behind him, was General Jack O'Neill. He had a very confused expression on his face.

Sam ran over to him and grabbed his hand, beaming up at him. "I knew you'd rescue me, I just knew it!" She yanked on his arm, nearly making him fall over and dragged him over to the cell. "Look! We're cool like you!" She pointed at their prisoners.

Ba'al was certain that O'Neill was going to make some rude little comment. But what he did was worse. Much, much worse.

He laughed.

He laughed so hard that he fell to the floor. Tears were streaking out of his eyes and he still would not stop laughing. Sam started laughing too. The other members of SG-1 looked at them, confused for a moment, but then decided it was funny as well.

Ba'al hated it when he got laughed at.


	7. Chapter 7

Dr. Lam finished her check-up. "You appear in perfect health." She told Cam. Cam blushed and giggled shyly.

"Thanks," he said.

Dr. Lam smiled. He was so cute!

"Well?" Jack asked, looked expectantly at the doctor.

"It appears to be temporary," Dr. Lam told him. "They should rapidly age until they get back to their real age."

"How long will it take?" Daniel asked, resisting the urge to jump on the infirmary bed.

"I'd say a month, tops," Dr. Lam said.

"Oh, goody," Vala groaned. "I get to go through the teenage years again!"

"But a lot quicker this time," Daniel pointed out.

"What happened with Ba'al?" Tealc asked. He really wanted to know what the US government did with all the prisoners.

"Well," Jack said, "Right now he's probably still pouting in area 51 about getting captured."

Sam, sitting on the floor hugging Jack's leg, like she had been for the entire ride home, giggled. "Ba'al is an ugly old fat poo-poo head!"

Jack had to laugh at that.


	8. Chapter 8

It was a month later when Sam came to visit Jack in the pentagon. She was clearly nervous and uncomfortable. Jack knew because he had been watching her from his window for the past three hours while she paced outside the building, working up her courage. She was dressed in her smart blue dress uniform when she walked through the door with a confident step that relayed no hesitation.

"Carter!" Jack exclaimed, grinning, "I see you're all grown up again."

"Yes, Sir." Sam smiled and blushed.

"Sit down."

Sam sat down. "Look, Sir, I just came to apologise."

"For what?"

She fidgeted, nervous. "For the way I acted when... when I was 'younger'."

Jack had to grin. "Don't apologise, Sam. It was cute."

Sam smiled a little at that. "Well, as I'm sure you know, the structure that turned us all into five year olds has been taken to Area 51. But so far, nobody has gotten it to work again."

"Any idea how it worked in the first place?"

Sam shook her head. "No, but it was amazing. ..."

Jack interrupted. "I'm thinking lunch. Ya know, catch up on old times."

Sam smiled, and nodded. "Sounds good."

AT AREA 51

Ba'al chuckled evilly as he slipped past the security systems. He would escape this pathetic compound! He entered a room, and saw a large, stone structure with an old dialect of ancient writing on it. He heard some guards, and hid behind the structure. As they walked past, he leaned against it in relief.

There was a blinding flash of light and a weird, high-pitched grating sound. Ba'al felt an explosion burst from the structure, and was knocked unconscious...

THE END


End file.
